


Sky High

by NienteZero



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Typical Violence, M/M, Multi, Quinn POV, Stupidity, author wants to go on vacation now, idiot boys in love, mostly Quinn, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 10:00:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NienteZero/pseuds/NienteZero
Summary: Everything had been going well between Quinn and Eliot when Eliot broke the news that he was with Parker and Hardison. Quinn's got a broken heart, a job to do, and a meddling blonde mastermind on the other side of the planet to contend with.





	1. Singapore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [51PegasiB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/51PegasiB/gifts), [skymning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skymning/gifts).

> This is down to the group chat crew who make everything gloriously possible. Title is a reference to [Sky High](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mudlXF3MA8Q) by Jigsaw, a song that is both an action movie theme _and_ a breakup song.

Quinn wasn't much for the permanent things in life. Always on the move and a pretty man in every port had been his way since he was old enough to make plans and hit the road. Which was why it was practically a crime for Eliot fuckin' Spencer to be taking up so much of his thoughts.

Oh, sure, he probably should have known that they were just fuck buddies. It made sense. It didn't make sense for Quinn to be sitting in a dilapidated food court mooning over a plate of mee goreng, fried noodles with giant prawns and a soupy broth, thinking about how Eliot would be rhapsodizing over all the ingredients that gave the food its pungency and heat. It didn't make sense for him to be missing that sonofabitch when clearly he'd misread what they had.

Quinn looked at his watch. He had a job to do on the other side of Singapore's central Marina Bay. It was 7 pm now, by the time he got from the quiet, residential area he was in to the busy downtown, even the latest worker in the target office should have gone home. In, grab the hard drive, out into the humid evening to lose himself amongst the crowds. 

No time for being maudlin, even if it was true that he wouldn't have looked up the best hawker food center if he'd been here before he met Eliot.

Sighing, Quinn pushed his plate away and set out. This job gave him too much time on his own. He should have found a quick fuck in one of the hotel bars downtown. There were always tourists ready for some action. He could have found a willing body who wanted it rough enough to take his mind off the last time he had Eliot in his bed. Going on a pilgrimage for food was a stupid-ass decision if he wanted to quit dwelling on losing Eliot.

Quinn sped across town on a rental motorbike, darting between the cars and trucks like he'd been born to the chaotic traffic. It had its own logic to it, and the biggest piece of logic was that no one else was looking out for you. If you were on a bike, you just had to make your own openings and your own luck and hope not to get crushed. Which was life, until some shiny-haired bastard made you think that maybe someone else was looking out for you, then stepped right on your heart. Quinn swerved aggressively through an intersection to a screech of horns. Ah, shit, he had to focus because right now the job was all he had. 

That hadn't felt like a lonely thought 'til after he'd almost had more.

And did Spencer have to look so goddam happy when he broke the news to Quinn?

He slammed the bike into a tight turn, leaning so his knee almost touched the ground and straightening up again just as fast. He was almost in the wealthy business district and should probably start noticing traffic laws again instead of behaving like some kind of angsty rookie. 

Parking the bike in an inconspicuous spot a few blocks from the shimmering skyscraper that housed the office Quinn needed to reach, Quinn slipped off the helmet and ran his hands through his hair. The heat had turned it into a mass of curls, and he pulled it back into a low ponytail to keep it out of his face. His white linen shirt was a wrinkled mess, but that just made him look more the part of a hapless foreign businessman. 

Time to get the party started.

There was always a back door into big buildings. A loading dock, an unsecured parking lot. Somewhere that wasn't staffed by sharp young people who actually paid attention to their jobs. This one had underground parking "guarded" by a sleepy looking man who Quinn had done some background on. People in security positions got a minimum wage, a luxury not afforded to other Singaporean workers, but even at that minimum wage, the pay wasn't enough to live well in a city this expensive. Quinn went for bribes that were lavish enough to be tempting without being alarmingly over the top. Sure, there was also punching, but something didn't sit right with him about punching sad old men who were mostly there to look at ID badges all day, not fight off serious miscreants.

Or hanging with Leverage had made him soft. Either way.

Quinn made a show of patting his shirt pocket and his trouser pockets and looking increasingly distressed.

"Oh man, I, oh jeez, my badge, I left it upstairs-" 

He batted his lashes beseechingly at the guard.

"Listen, I'm going to be in so much trouble if I don't get up there and finish my presentation, big meeting tomorrow, so much trouble."

He made a point of dipping deep into his native accent. Sure, the guard probably spoke pretty good English, but throw the south into the mix and it threw people nicely.

"You couldn't, I mean-" he slid the bribe money toward the guard who looked at it thoughtfully before counting it and pocketing it.

"Don't forget your badge next time," the man said admonishingly, "what floor?"

"Up on twenty seven," Quinn said. The guard walked him over to the dingy elevator bay and badged him into the elevator.

The hard drive was on floor twenty two, but Quinn had a healthy superstition about telling even the nicest of guards just where he was headed to.

Quinn pulled out lockpicks and worked the lock that hid the button panel for the elevator. He leaned against the wall of the elevator, his body covering his quick work from the security camera. New destination entered, Quinn closed the panel and whistled softly. 

He felt his ears pop as the elevator shot up express-style. The door opened to an empty floor. There were glass doors on either side of the elevator bay leading off into mazes of offices and cubicles. This was where it got tricky. The elevators were badge access but the floors were biometric. That was part of why Quinn had gone for finessing the guard rather than doing a lift off an employee. The other part being that this company took lost badges really seriously, which made them much harder to just steal. People actually paid attention to where they put them after leaving the building. Maybe if he were Parker. 

So this was where the whole thing turned into a smash-and-grab on a timetable. Break glass to enter offices, grab the drive out of the computer, two minutes tops. Guards wouldn't make it up from the ground floor for three minutes. Four guards who'd be squeamish about damaging company property - they always were - versus one Quinn riding on the sheer fury of the man he thought he loved smiling and telling him the great news about how he was with Parker and Hardison now, how they'd let him in to their little clubhouse leaving Quinn cold and on the outside.

The kick that smashed the glass door was perhaps more vicious and powerful than it needed to be.

Two minutes to crack open a computer case like his cold dead fuckin' heart, rip the drive out, and stuff it in the waistband of his pants.

A quiet infiltration of this place could be done if you wanted to pay for a whole crew, but some clients were just as happy to get things done the old fashioned way, and since Quinn had no objections to old fashioned, he was happy to take their money.

The elevator from the lobby dinged as Quinn came back round the corner. The little cadre of guards looked unhappy to see the broken door and him.

Quinn smiled coldly.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.... but since this is Singapore..."

For some reason the guards didn't seem to find that funny if the guns and shouting were anything to go by.

Quinn pictured that quiet little curve of Eliot's mouth when he was truly happy. took a deep breath, and started hitting.

The guns were no real problem to take away. These weren't people used to shooting at a real person, and Quinn heard Eliot's drawl in his head, "real specific range of efficacy." That applied to him shooting too. In this confined space it wasn't a risk he was interested in.

Was he always going to think of his Oklahoma boy at the worst time? Quinn snapped the gun out of the last guard's hand with a twisting motion that did more than loose the gun. The guard cried out in pain, and Quinn backhanded him with the butt of the pistol, dropping him to the floor. The other three were still up, looking slightly dazed at being disarmed so fast. 

Quinn was fast, but the three remaining guards were no slouches at hand to hand. There was a young woman whose moves were pure Shaolin. Must have learned in mainland China. She was going to give him the most trouble. The other two were both less adept and more nervous at finding themselves in the middle of a real fight. It wasn't much trouble to duck blows from them while landing solid hits that put them on their asses. It'd be almost disappointing if the fourth guard weren't going to give him a run for his money.

Time slowed around Quinn and for a few minutes he had the luxury of being far too busy to worry about a broken heart. The flow state hit him, the way of being where there was no room to be distracted even for a second by thinking about anything other than every moment he was in. His opponent wasn't remotely in his weight class, but her center of gravity was balanced out low on a powerful stance that drove all her kicks and strikes with a force they shouldn't have had. 

Quinn was used to being the fast one in the fight. The young, hungry one. But he had nothing on her speed, the way she'd sway back almost to the ground to duck under his hits and then be on her feet launching a kick before he'd reset his stance. 

It was good. He grinned through bloodied teeth. Felt real good to let loose like this. He had a timetable though, so he was going to have to put her down soon. What he had that she didn't was the experience of doing this, of going against people who'd want to kill you. This job wasn't like that. This company was just the regular kind of dirty, not the hiring hardened criminals for security kind of dirty.

He left himself open for her to swing in at his ribs, baiting her to get close enough for him to lay a barrage of heavy punches on her. A hammerfist down on the head and followed by a knee to the face dropped her. 

Quinn felt a twinge of guilt and shook his head.

Damn Leverage. Maybe he'd been coming around to thinking he didn't want to take this kind of job any more. The kind where the folks he fought were just earning a pay check. Maybe he'd been feeling some stirrings of whatever he might have of a conscience. Thinking to kill only the really bad guys. Or the really annoying ones.

But since he was just good enough to warm Eliot's bed for the time they'd had, infrequent fucks that kind of felt like making love, why the hell should he change? Anyway, she was breathing. She'd signed up for a dangerous job. Not his problem.

Quinn picked up one of the guard's guns and shot out the security camera. There should be one guard still left watching the screens, no need for them to see where Quinn headed next. He grabbed a badge off the same guard and used it to call each of the elevators in turn, putting in calls for several floors on each. Modern smart elevators were only as smart as the security around them. He knew there was a camera blind spot in each elevator, so once they were on their way and stopping at random floors, his whereabouts would be in doubt.

But he wasn't getting in an elevator, he was headed for a discreet door marked for maintenance only. He kicked the door in. There was a service elevator and a fire door leading to a stair well. Quinn took the stairs. The security in this building, cutely enough, had focused cameras on public areas, giving him an exit off the office floors.

Timing was still crucial though. By his watch he had four minutes to get down to the fourth floor of the building, which housed busy retail around an atrium rising from the lobby. Four minutes was when the last of the security guards should be meeting arriving police, therefore not keeping an eye on the screens. 

Quinn took the stairs at a run, adrenaline pumping. It was something to feel good at his job, on top of his game. This was something he had control over. He slammed open the fire door onto the fourth floor and dashed through into the back storage room of one of the shops.

Two minutes' quick change later and he was any old American tourist in a brand new polo shirt with a little crocodile over the heart, a pair of cargo bermuda shorts with one precious hard drive in the pocket, and a baseball cap pulled over his curls. He sauntered out of the storage room into the still busy shop, and walked out of the building like a man with no cares in the world.


	2. Bali

The drop for the hard drive was, to Quinn's amusement, less than a block from where he'd stolen it. A hyper-competitive local company wanted that data, and even more than that wanted it known publicly that their competition didn't have the data secured.

A short motorbike ride later, a quick stop to pick up a stashed go bag, and Quinn was on the ten minute ferry across to Batam Island. Then a hop on a plane over to Jakarta, and on to Bali where he had a sweet resort waiting, ready for a few days of classic R and R. A little drinking, a lot of rebound sex, sounded like exactly what he needed. If he'd done his job right, and he had, the Singapore police would be under the impression that the alias he'd been working under had flown directly to Bangkok, the complete opposite direction to where he was headed.

The money from this job was good enough that he didn't exactly need to roll on to the next paying gig for a couple of months at least. The itch to be doing something new would be under his skin well before the cash ran out. There was a snarly part of Quinn's brain that wanted to find the nastiest job he could take and just go to town on it until he stopped feeling.

In the meantime, for the flight to Bali, there were numerous little whiskey bottles and a flight attendant whose uniform fit him like a glove.

Bali was stunning. Beaches and mountains. So incredibly green and vibrant. The resort town Quinn was staying in was close to the southern tip of the island, only a half hour drive up from the airport, on the west coast. There were lots of different ways to be in Bali - on a spiritual journey to the sacred mountains and rivers, on a drunken spring break like trip from Australia, tucked away in a romantic villa on a remote stretch of coast. But for Quinn's desires he was headed straight to Seminyak Beach, a ritzy resort town with a solid night life and the sort of luxury that made the work all worth it.

Checking in to the quietly grand hotel on the beach Quinn was handed a thick envelope made of high quality paper with the name of his current alias on the front of it in handwriting.

"This arrived for you, sir," the hotel receptionist told him with a smile, after she gave him his room key.

A shock of nerves ran through Quinn. No one should know he was here, or what name he was using. Playing the studiedly casual tourist he headed to his room as quickly as he could without attracting attention. Once he had cleared the room and bolted the door, he opened the envelope.

There was a note and a set of boarding passes.

Reading the note, Quinn sank down to the bed in bewilderment.

Scrawled in loopy handwriting in teal ink, the top part of the note read "Use the tickets or Hardison will burn half your aliases." 

The bottom part of the note was in different handwriting in black ink: "Look man, I'm not going to burn you. E screwed up and that's not on you. But I'm tired of looking at his grumpy face, so come get your boy and let him explain all this properly."

Quinn looked at the boarding passes. Departing in two days from now, they routed him through Tokyo and LA to get him to Portland. First Class all the way, using an alias he was carrying a passport for in his go bag.

What. The. Fuck. 

He read the note again. It didn't make any more sense to him. Well, it was reassuring that it was Hardison who'd tracked him down. There was no shame in being found by the best hacker Quinn had ever met. And he shouldn't be surprised that Hardison and Parker were messing in Eliot's business. But he still didn't get it.

Explain what? His boy? What? 

Had Eliot been mistaken and those two didn't want him? No. No way. Any idiot could see that they adored their hitter.

Eliot had got what he wanted, surely. His team, his sweethearts. So what the hell did Hardison mean talking about Eliot's grumpy face? What the hell did Eliot have to sulk about? He wasn't the one who got dumped for an impossibly perfect double act.

Maybe they just wanted to clear the air so Quinn would work with them if they needed him. Well, they had another think coming if that's what they thought. Although if they really needed him? 

Quinn scowled. He kicked his shoes off and stripped quickly. He felt grimy from the plane and furious that he was even thinking about Eliot on what was supposed to be his vacation.

Under the rainwater shower head, Quinn let the water run through his hair, and massaged his temples. He had a headache just from thinking about Eliot's crew. He had to get his head in the game if he wanted to score tonight. 

Quinn ran his hands over his body, feeling for any residual bruising or soreness. Not much more than usual, even with the Shaolin fighter in the mix. He knew his face had a few scuff marks, a bit of tell-tale darkness around the orbital, but he didn't want to attract the kind of man that didn't want to see a bit of roughness on him. 

Quinn rolled his shoulders to loosen them, enjoying the feel of the warm water on his skin. He let his mind wander to who he might find tonight and what they might do together. Building that hot anticipation was much more pleasant than letting Eliot fill his thoughts.

He reached down to stroke his cock slowly, picturing a man holding him down, pressing on those bruises until he was biting back gasps of pain, fucking him open until he forgot everything else but the heat of the moment and the thickness of the cock inside him. He came into his hand with an almost silent moan. 

Where to pick up someone for the night was no problem. Seminyak Beach was full of incredible high-end restaurants and to hell with that, Quinn was headed downstairs to the hotel bar. He dressed casually in a dark blue Sea Island cotton shirt and a pair of crisp tan trousers. He knew very well that the blue complemented his eyes. For business and pleasure reasons it was smart to be aware of your assets. 

The hotel bar was a stunning terrace right beside the ocean. The sun was going down, bathing everything in a soft orange luminescence. Quinn decided to start the evening easy, and ordered a Bintang, a crisp local lager that went down smooth and wouldn't get him drunk too fast. 

He was sipping from the bottle and taking in the crowd on the terrace when the company he was looking for found Quinn. A tall, broad shouldered man, maybe with three inches on Quinn's six feet, golden tanned skin, and floppy dark blond hair hanging over his eyes came and set another bottle in front of Quinn.

"My shout," he said, "mind if I grab this seat?"

Quinn looked up at him and smiled. The stranger had blue eyes, as blue as Eliot's.

Not that he was thinking of Eliot now, damn it. He hadn't mooned this much over Eliot when they were... whatever they'd been. Still, maybe tall, blond, and handsome was exactly what he needed to get his mind off Eliot.

"Be my guest," he said, gesturing expansively.

The blond man grinned and sat down, setting his own beer in front of him.

"All on your own?" he said. His voice was deep and pleasant and very, very Australian. He had the lean muscles of a surfer, and Quinn looked him up and down appreciatively.

"Not for long, I hope," he said. He clinked bottles with the blond.

"Name's Matthew," Quinn lied.

"Grant," the blond said, "good to meet ya. You here long?"

"Just a couple of days," Quinn said.

"Where to next?" Grant asked.

Quinn's brow furrowed. Honestly he hadn't decided whether to use those tickets or not. Why the hell did Parker and Hardison stick their nose in his business?

"Back to the grind?" Grant said sympathetically, "might as well make the most of the time you've got here then."

"Yes, something like that," Quinn said, smiling briefly. He took a deep gulp of his beer. Jesus, was he really going to blow an easy pickup because his mind was on bullshit he couldn't even have?

"Got any ideas for how you're gunna have fun?" Grant said, nudging Quinn's knee with his own, and making a show of giving the neck of his beer bottle a lot more tongue than was strictly called for.

"I might have a few," Quinn said.

"Do any of them involve finishing the beers and heading back to your room?" Grant said. He smiled cheekily and gave Quinn a heated look through his lashes. Clearly a man who wasn't shy about what he wanted. Also he was pretty daring, reading Quinn's signs fast enough to make moves that could get him into trouble if Quinn hadn't been looking to pick up.

"I'd say that's a great plan," Quinn said.

Quinn didn't bother too much with clearing the room before he let Grant push him against a wall and start kissing him. It was good, great even. They stepped out of their shoes and Grant tugged Quinn's shirt up and started unbuttoning his fly.

Quinn pushed his hands up under Grant's shirt feeling the smooth, warm expanse of his muscular back.

Grant pulled away from a long kiss.

"Scuse me a moment, but if we're gunna go any further, I have to take a piss."

Nothing quite like an Australian for bluntness, Quinn thought fondly.

Quinn started to pull back the covers on the bed. No need to be uncomfortable. The note was still lying there on the covers where he'd thrown it.

He read it over again.

What if Hardison and Parker weren't trying to get him back there so Eliot could explain the break up better to him? Break up. As if they'd been together. But, what if? What if Eliot did still want him? What would that mean? How, though?

The toilet flushed, and Quinn shoved the letter in his pocket as Grant came up behind him, throwing his arms over Quinn's shoulder and leaning down to kiss him on the neck.

Quinn tilted his neck. Damn that felt good. Quinn let Grant finish taking his shirt off, manhandling him out of the loose cotton. 

"Ya still with me, Mattie?" Grant said, "am I going too fast?"

Quinn shook his head.

"Sorry," he said, "Not you."

Grant clucked his tongue.

"Man trouble?" he said.

Quinn turned around to look at him.

"Guess you could say that," he said. "Fuck it, I had every intention of letting you seduce me."

"I haven't given up on it," Grant said cheerfully. "Come on, tell Uncle Grantie all your troubles."

Grant sat down on Quinn's bed and held his arms open. There was something about his broad, open face, and the glint of humor in his eyes that made Quinn reckless. Why not?

"I'm usually a lot smoother than this," he said.

"I got that impression." 

Quinn sat between Grant's legs and leaned back on the other man's chest. Grant wasn't particularly bigger than Quinn, but he had a bold physicality to him that pushed all the right buttons.

"So, spill the goss mate," Grant said.

Quinn sighed. The story, as he told it, leaving out certain key elements of a legally dubious nature, was just so stupid. 

"That's rough, mate," Grant said when Quinn was finished, "were you exclusive or...?"

Quinn shrugged ruefully.

"I have no idea what the hell we were."

"You're gunna go back and find out, though, right?" Grant asked, "you talk about this bloke like he hung the moon."

"I don't know," Quinn said. What the hell was he doing, picking up a hot guy and using him as an agony aunt. They could be fucking right now, but Quinn had lost the mood, caught up in the turmoil of emotions around that damn stupid note.

"Maaaate. You should go," Grant said.

"I suppose so," Quinn said, almost sulkily.

"Well, this was not how I thought my night was gunna go when I saw you," Grant said.

"I'm sorry," Quinn said, "me either."

"Ah well, no worries," Grant said, "I reckon you're probably not up for a shag, but we could get a quick wristie in."

Quinn laughed, startled by Grant's pragmatic opportunism. Well, why the hell not? Like he said, it wasn't like he and Eliot had been exclusive.


	3. Portland

Leverage, Inc. wasn't there to meet Quinn at the airport, and he was glad of that. There was a car to take him to a hotel. Smart, letting him sleep off the jetlag before dealing with all of whatever this was.

He was woken the next morning at a lazy ten o'clock by a knock on the door. He peered through the spyhole in the door to see Alec Hardison standing there, holding a brown paper bag in one hand and a garment bag in the other. Quinn sighed and opened the door.

Hardison pushed in and handed both bags to Quinn. Quinn put the suit on the bed and looked in the bag. A breakfast burrito. Not a bad welcome back to the United States.

"Thanks. What am I doing here?" he asked Hardison, "make it good."

Hardison gestured to the small sitting area in the hotel room and they sat down. Quinn unwrapped the burrito and bit into it while waiting for Hardison to talk.

What the hell was he doing here? Jetlag always made things seem distant and unreal, but flying across the world on the strength of emotion was a new experience for Quinn, one he didn't like.

"You know, I know my man Eliot, he's not so good at talking things out," Hardison said, "Parker and I, we finally got him cornered and got him to understand how we feel, so it was all good. But then he goes and spends the weekend with you and comes back looking like you personally killed his puppy."

Hardison gave Quinn a piercing look.

"Now I know that isn't what went down from your perspective, so Parker and I talked it over and what we could get out of him seemed to be he gave you a version of things that was missing some major points."

"I think I understood just fine," Quinn snapped, "I don't understand why you and Parker think you get to try to mess around in my life."

Hardison laughed softly, "Man, that's what we do," he said, "Anyway, no reason for you and Eliot to be miserable when you could just, you know, talk. Like regular human beings."

"I don't think there's much to talk about," Quinn said, "Eliot's with you and I'm with whoever I want to be, that's all."

He smiled, but it wasn't a happy expression.

"Nah, see, man, that's not all. Eliot thought you knew that."

Hardison leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

"You gotta know we're not the traditional kind, I mean, with the three of us. We never thought it was going to be us and Eliot had to give you up, we thought it was us and you."

Quinn dropped the burrito on the table and sat back, dumbfounded.

"He, you- what?" he said.

"Yeah, I thought that's what you'd say," Hardison said.

"Parker'n'me, we like you a lot, and we like you for Eliot. You two got things between you that we'll never have with him, and that's okay."

"So Eliot-"

"Eliot is a dumbass who's so emotionally constipated that apparently the two of you never had one conversation that would have let you know how gone on you he is, so he thinks he told his boyfriend some real good news and then you took off in a huff instead of being happy for him."

"But I-"

"You are also an emotionally constipated jackass who should maybe even one time have said 'so what are we?'" Hardison said, "So now you get your life meddled with. Put the suit on and clean yourself up, you've got a date to get to."

Quinn bristled.

"Does Eliot even know I'm here?" he asked.

"Naw, we thought it'd be more fun this way. Hey, Parker's the mastermind, and I don't argue with the mastermind." Hardison said, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

"You have half an hour to get ready, E will be waiting for you downstairs in the coffee shop. Good luck. If you fuck this up, Parker probably will make me ruin your credit."

Quinn got dressed in baffled silence. He felt like a teenager who'd been given his first suit for a job interview and told not to screw it up. Granted, his go bag didn't have anything in it that was suitable for the chilly humidity of the Portland day, but he couldn't remember the last time someone else had picked clothes out for him. Hardison had done a decent job, but it did nothing to make the whole situation less surreal.

He fixed the collar on the shirt and slipped his shoes on. Time to go downstairs. Quinn felt strangely jittery. He'd walked into live fire without his stomach flipping around so much. It was just Eliot. The worst outcome was that one or both of them ended up dead, but the more likely worst outcome was that they still ended up not... whatever the fuck it was that they'd been.

Okay, so maybe Hardison had a point about the lack of conversation.

Now or never.

"Quinn?" Eliot said, standing up from the seat he'd taken in the lobby coffee shop, at a corner table with his back to the wall, "What're you doing here?"

"I'm here to see you," Quinn said grimly.

"Damnit Parker," Eliot said, "She told me I was coming to meet a client. Unless you are here with a job?" He squinted at Quinn.

"No job. Just your partners putting their noses in where they don't belong," Quinn said, "I need coffee if I'm going to have this conversation. Get you one?"

Eliot sat down with an uneasy expression on his face and nodded, "yeah, thanks."

Quinn brought back two large strong black coffees. 

"Your crew picked a smart location," he said, "lots of civilians, neither of us going to start something."

"You got something to start?" Eliot said.

"What do you think?" Quinn said, and sighed.

"Well this is going well," Quinn said, "let's try that again. Your partners think we're overdue a conversation, and I guess they're not wrong about that."

"We're guys, do we really have to talk?" Eliot said, "C'mon man, what happened to 'I'm your huckleberry'?"

Quinn rolled his eyes, "So you just get to do whatever you want and I'm just supposed to be grateful I got what I did," he said. He pushed his chair back.

"Guess if you don't want to talk, we're done here."

"Wait," Eliot said, "sit your ass back down. I ain't going to say this more than once. Okay, I fucked up, okay?"

"Thank you," Quinn said in a heartfelt manner.

Eliot leaned over the table, his fingers just barely touching the back of Quinn's hand.

"I thought you knew you always had a place with me. I don't care where you go, or if you fuck anyone else, you're a beautiful, loyal sonofabitch, and I'm never not going to want you. I ain't forgotten you would have killed a man just to save me the trouble. Should've said it before, but I thought you knew. Thought you knew when I was telling you about Parker and Hardison it was 'and', not 'instead of'."

"I did not know that," Quinn said dryly, "so we're what? Serious but you're with them too?"

"I'm serious, man. I got two speeds, one night only or in all the way, and I'm in all the way with you. You kept comin' back, so I figured you were in all the way too."

Quinn felt dizzy. He'd never really dug into what they were or what future they had 'til Eliot had (he thought) told him they had no future. And now Eliot was saying that Quinn could have everything he wanted. 

As long as he was good with sharing.

Which, it was Hardison and Parker - it didn't take Eliot being with them romantically for Quinn to know he was already sharing Eliot with them. 

It clicked into place. All the sorrow and the anger. Well, he still felt the hurt, like a soft-tissue injury slowly healing, but like a joint that had been dislocated and now it was still painful but back in right.

"Okay," he said, "okay. It was pretty bad when I thought I lost you, and I probably should have told you too. I'm in all the way."

Quinn heard a soft "woohoo," from another table, and from the way Eliot turned to glare, so did he. Ah, yep, there were Hardison and Parker in rich people disguises - god, why did athleisure wear have to come in such tacky colors - pretending to be deeply engaged in reading newspapers. Bug under the table, no doubt.

"You want to get out of here? Because I really want to get out of here before I punch Hardison and piss you off." Quinn said.

"Oh yeah," Eliot said, standing up and snarling in Parker and Hardison's direction, "got somewhere more private we can talk?"

Opening the door to his hotel room, Quinn stopped sharply, putting a hand up to keep Eliot back. Someone had been in there. A quick scan of the room relaxed him and he let Eliot come in. 

Someone was apparently Parker. Only Parker would have left a huge gift basket with a bottle of champagne, several bottles of energy drink, and what looked like half the contents of a drug store's sex supplies aisle on the table in the seating area.

The pink fuzzy handcuffs hanging from the handle of the basket had to be Hardison's special touch.

Quinn laughed, feeling a genuine sense of warmth and happiness. Maybe he did get to have this. Whatever "this" was having gone from fear and uncertainty to their own special brand of chaotic normality. He certainly appeared to have the blessing of Eliot's other partners.

Eliot grinned and waggled his eyebrows, "we done talking? Because it looks like we're set up for something better than talking."

Quinn licked his lips. Probably he should stay madder for longer. But it was hard to say this was anything other than the two of them being boneheads. And it wasn't like Eliot had more experience at this... relationship? business than Quinn was. Like the man said, one night only had been his way of life.

Stay mad, or get fucked? Not a difficult choice.

Eliot inside him was every bit as good as Quinn remembered. Better, somehow, today. Sure, he'd had to beg some, but that made it even more perfect. Eliot putting those stupid fluffy pink cuffs on him with a glint of laughter in his eyes, and laying Quinn down on his back in the bed, cuffed wrists stretched over his head while Eliot just looked at him like he was about to eat Quinn up. 

Eliot teasing his hole open with lubed up fingers and glaring him into stillness when he tried to push back too fast and feel those fingers deeper in him. Eliot teasing his rim with the head of his cock until Quinn was swearing, _damnit Eliot, just fuck me already, just do it_.

And now, Eliot bracing with one hand beside Quinn's head, those beautiful arm muscles flexing, the other hand tight on Quinn's cock, the exquisite roughness of Eliot's knife callouses teasing at the head. Eliot's hips snapping as he thrust into Quinn.

"Yeah, yeah," Eliot was murmuring in that deep country drawl, "I gotcha, you're all mine, beautiful, you belong with me, yeah, take it good, fuck, so good for me." Those stupid cuffs that he could break out of with one motion hugging tight around his wrists like the promise Eliot's words held, that Quinn was wanted, that he was worth keeping.

The words and the touch had Quinn over the edge, spurting into Eliot's hand with a sharp cry almost of pain. He was all sensitive nerves now, the perfect feeling of too much to bear as Eliot's stroked stuttered short and uneven, pulling almost all the way out before coming on one last thrust and a groan.

Eliot's collapsed onto Quinn's chest, the hot weight of his body pressing Quinn comfortably into the mattress.

"Almost fucked up bad enough to lose you," Eliot murmured, "ain't making that mistake again."

Coda:

Much, much later that day, Eliot and Quinn were lying naked in bed chatting lazily about this and that. Eliot told Quinn what had been going on at the brew pub, and Quinn told Eliot about the Singapore job. 

"Oh, that reminds me," Quinn said, grabbing his phone from the bedside table, "smile!"

He held the phone up with the front camera on and took a selfie of the two of them looking fucked out and sleepy.

"What was that for?" Eliot asked.

"Ah, I got some good advice in Bali, and I promised I'd send a photo if things worked out," Quinn said, tapping rapidly on the keyboard.

Eliot peered over. On the message screen there was a contact photo of a blond man next to a string of pictures what looked like Japanese eggplants, tiny raindrops, and a bunch of thumbs ups.


End file.
